AN INVITATION to the DIVINE PRESENCE
I ask my Lord to help me to be just and to uphold justice. This is what our Lord
asked of mankind from the time of the first man, Adam, up to our time, and it is what
will be asked of man until the Last Day. A person who stands for justice is called
“Haqqani”, and that title is the essential basis of all other honourable ranks in the
Divine Presence.

“The day when truth will benefit the truthful”

It means nothing to Allah that you were known in this life as a Muslim, Christian, Jew
or Buddhist, but he will be concerned with whether you de­served the title of
Haqqani. Those who have been Haqqani in this life are transformed; their very
essence adopts Divine attributes so that they become “Rabbani” or beings who
pertain to the Lord intim­ately. It is about these people that Allah Almighty says in a
Holy Hadith:

Oh My servant, be obedient to Me and I will make you Rabbani Then you (also) will
say to a thing “be” and so will it be. When one reaches the level of Rabbani, God
dresses him in His Own attributes and makes him His deputy. Then he grants you
willpower that is not your own, but His. But the way to attain the Station of Rabbani
leads through the Station of Haqqani, and whoever intends sincerely to be Haqqani
will receive guidance from Him.

What is the nature of the station of Rabbani? For those in that station the ocean may
be as a puddle, and even the whole world may be a crumb in their hands. Abdul
Wahhab ash-Shaarani, a great Sufi of Egypt, said that some men of God see the
world as a candle and some see it as an atom. A man of God will first be shown the
nature of the universe and all of its creatures, then he will learn about the Lord
Almighty. Therefore, on his Night Journey the Holy Prophet was shown the whole
universe and only thereafter was invited to leave it and enter the realm of absolute
Truth. He left everything, including his self, and entered the Divine Presence, but
only after he had been shown ev­erything about the world did he enter Unity
Oceans.

He entered Unity Oceans but he was ordered back to the world to invite all Nations
to follow him to the Divine Presence. Those who heed his call to ascend to the
seven heavens are two sep­arate groups. The first group consists of those who may
potentially attain the Station of Gabriel. When Gabriel was leading the Holy Prophet
in his ascension, he stopped at a certain point, for fear of being annihilated in the
Divine. That Station represents the highest attainment possible through the mind.
The second group contains those who are prepared to sacrifice everything, even
themselves, to attain absolute “Unity Oceans”. Their station is absolute Unity,
Ahadiya, while the station of those who fail to throw off the yoke of mind, form and
relativity is the station of Gabriel, the station of the awareness of Unity, Wahadiyya.
The station of Wahadiyya is in Unity Oceans, but it is a “sub-station”. It is, however,
the uttermost limit for all but the fewest of seekers.

The way to the station of Ahadiyya, of absolute Unity, is one of total inner
renunciation of all hopes of being something. Some of our brothers have asked me
to open up to them the doors of Divine attraction, Jadhbah. It is a kind of a power,
but it is not my job to dispense power, but to take it away, that you might be empty
handed and thus candidates for the station of Absolute Unity.

If an unprepared person were to receive spiri­tual power, he would only wreak
destruction upon himself and others. A little boy may admire the large horses the
police ride, but if he we were to mount him on such a horse, do you think that he
would be able to control it? Sometimes a father may put his small son on his lap
while he drives down a quiet street, and let him steer, but do you think that the
father is really letting him drive?

Only those who have subdued their egos may be given any power. A rocket is not
launched until all of its systems have been checked many times over, and the flight
of each soul to its heavenly destination is much more important than launching a
rocket, so don’t imagine that Grandsheikhs em­power their murids easily.

Once, Ubaydullah al-Ahrari called one of his murids and said: “Oh Abdullah, go
climb that moun­tain and wait there for me, I am coming after you.” The murid
climbed the mountain and began to wait. The morning passed, then the afternoon.
The sun set and still there was no sign of the Sheikh. The next day the dervish
waited patiently, but still the Sheikh did not come. But his orders were clear, so he
waited, a week, a month, a year, five years, and seven years. He survived on that
mountain as a beast would survive. In the summer he fed himself with berries and in
the winter from the bark of trees. When he prayed the birds would alight on his
shoulders and at night when he chanted his Dhikr the animals would gather around
him in a circle.

There he waited for seven years without any news from his Grandsheikh. But the
Grandsheikh had originaly received the order to send that murid to the mountain
from the Holy Prophet, and he was awaiting the order to go up, after him. When the
order arrived the Sheikh went up to the murid’s perch in the blink of an eye and said
to him. “Oh my son, why have you been waiting here so long? I told you that I was
coming, so when I didn’t come, why didn’t you come and see what had happened to
me? I could have died or been hurt; I could have been lost on the mountain, so why
didn’t you search for me?" The murid answered: "Oh my Master, I was ordered to
wait for you, not to look for you. You ordered me to wait here until you came, and,
as the saying goes, whatever a noble person pro­mises, that he will fulfil, so what
about you, Oh most noble of mankind! Is it possible for you to promise something
and then fail to fulfil it? I would have waited here for you even until the Last Day. A
dog will wait for you if you tell him to, so how shall I be less loyal and obedient?
Besides, it was not too difficult for me to wait here, at least you came before I died,
when you could have left me until that time too. I relied on your word, not on my
mind’s judgement, as I know that you are caring for me.”

The murid had understood that his Sheikh was not really scolding him for staying
there but that he was testing him by repeating the same argu­ments and objections
that his ego had brought forward when the Sheikh had not appeared when
expected. That murid attained the same level of reliance upon his Sheikh and
through his Sheikh on the Prophet and ultimately on his Lord, that Abraham
attained in reliance on his Lord. When Abraham was thrown in the fire by Nimrod,
the Angel Gabriel came and asked him: “Are you in need of help?” "I am in need of
my Lord’s help, not yours," replied Abraham. Then Gabriel said: “Then ask your
Lord for help.” “There is no need for me to ask, for He sees me, looks after me and
knows well, where I am and of what I am in need.’”

That murid was on exactly the same level of trust to his Sheikh. He knew that his
Grandsheikh, was not a blind person, and that, therefore, he must be aware of his
condition. This is why he answered his Sheikh’s queries by saying “Oh my Sheikh, I
have no doubt that you are keeping me within the scope of your spiritual vision, so
why should I apply my mind and will when I have given the reins of my will to you
trusting that you will guide me to my Lord’s pleasure. I am in your hands like a dead
body in the hands of those who wash it before burial.”

Then there appeared a flock of wild doves as an escort for a very large green bird,
a bird which appears to murids who have successfully completed their seclusion.
That is a sign that the murid is ready to be escorted to the presence of the Holy
Prophet and the Grandsheikhs of his assembly. The Holy Prophet ordered
Ubaydullah: “Now I have witnessed that your murid is absolutely in control of his
ego, you may give him his powers.

The powers received at this point are six

Haqiqat ul-Jadhbah (The Secret of Attraction)

Haqiqat ul-Fayd (The Secret of Emanation or Outpouring)

Haqiqat ut-Tawassul (The Secret of Connection)

Haqiqat ut-Tawajjuh (The Secret of Alignment)

Haqiqat ul-Irshad (The Secret of Guidance)

Haqiqat ut-Tayy (The Secret of Folding Space)

Until the Holy Prophet appears to the Grand­sheikh and takes upon himself
responsibility for the murid, no powers are given. But at that time the floodgates are
thrown open.

In our way we must never claim to know any­thing or to be anything, because
dissolution in Unity Oceans requires the abandonment of all pretentiousness. Most
people, on the contrary spend their life energy on futile attempts to grasp some­
thing in their hands.

However, when they open their hands to see what they have, they realize that they
never caught it, or even if they did, it flies away as soon as they open their hands.
Even seekers of truth sometimes attempt a “catch” by trying to reach a spiritual
station for the sake of their egos. In this case seekers have not completely
renounced self-aggrandizement, but in accordance with their level they may attain
good in this life and the next, but not that ultimate station of Ahadiyya. Only he who
abandons the covetousness of this life and the next will be given pleasure that no
one can imagine.

A murid becomes eligible for these powers, then he becomes free of his ego’s
tyranny. When they are granted he is a free man, forever free of the limitations of
time and space. Time and space are the illusions which now bind us. When we are
free they are at our command.

The Power of Attraction is the power which enabled the saintly advisor of King
Solomon to bring the throne of the Queen of Sheba to Jerusalem, from Yemen in
the time it takes for an eye to blink, or less (Holy Qur’an, Chapter 34). This is the
power that enables one to draw anything to himself. Inanimate objects are the
easiest, people the most difficult.

The Power of Emanation or Outpouring is the power to be the means for the
transfer of the experience of the Divine Presence to the murid. It is all embracing
light that overflows the brim of the vessel. The Holy Prophet is the vessel in which
these Divine favours are poured and, as they are without end, they flow from his
heart to the hearts of Saints and from theirs to those of murids.

The Power of Connection is the power to connect at all times to this chain of
transmission of Divine power and favours. For Saints it is the intimate knowledge of
the Prophet’s realities and those of the chain of Sheikhs leading to him. For those
who are yet aspiring to that station it is the daily invocation of the names of those
Grandsheikhs leading up to the Holy Prophet. In our time, the time when the advent
of Imam al-Mahdi is anticipated, many more people will have access to this power
than ever before.

The Power of Alignment enables the Sheikh to turn his heart towards the hearts of
his murids at any given time, and to turn their hearts towards their destinations. If he
can’t do this then it is meaningless to say that he is a Sheikh. The first step is in his
turning the heart of the murid towards his own, after this it will be possible to turn it
onwards.

The Power of Guidance is the power to lead one on his way to his destination once
he has been turned toward the direction through the Power of Alignment. For
example, if you arrive at Heathrow Airport it is not enough, you must be lead or
given directions to arrive at your specific destination in London. Therefore, being
turned in the direction is only the first step, the door of the maze; you must be
helped on through it.

The Power of Folding Space is the power to travel at will anywhere in the Universe
without actually travelling the distance, but rather by “rolling it up” like a parchment.
Such a thing is unattainable except for those, who have subdued the physical body
absolutely. Presently our souls are encased in our physical bodies. The secret of
this power is that, by bringing the physical body under control it becomes encased
in the spiritual body, and the movement of the spiritual body is not cumbersome like
that of this body. What is the speed of a donkey compared to the speed of Light?
The speed of light is like a donkey compared to the speed of the spiritual body.